


Ghosts

by GrayJay



Series: Rex Racer on the Final Turn [2]
Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 02:23:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2796203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrayJay/pseuds/GrayJay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s not quite three, and his father is holding him up to look into Alex’s bassinet; impossibly tiny fingers warm under his hand when he reaches down, and he knows he’d do anything for-- His dad’s voice, <em>You’re a big brother now, Scott. Do you know what that means?</em> He’s twenty-two, half doubled over in a chair Professor Xavier’s office, clutching a crumpled sheet of paper, and everything is red; and he thinks, <em>It means this.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> This story can read as either a stand-alone or a prequel to [Rex Racer on the Final Turn](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2356574/chapters/5200295).

He’s eleven, in the hospital: everyone’s least favorite assignment (someone tells him later, when he can remember things not just hour-to-hour, but day-to-day) because for months, being there when the Summers kid wakes up means being the one who has to tell him all over again that his family is dead. He’s thirteen, in the orphanage; trying and trying and trying to make them understand that Alex is real, he _knows_ Alex is real, not his imaginary friend, not a figment of his jumbled-up brain, but his honest-to-god flesh-and-blood brother, and being dead doesn’t make him _not real_. He’s ten, falling, holding on to Alex as tight as he can, telling him not to look; waking up on the ground, Alex tear-streaked and screaming at him to stay awake, and all Scott wants is to--

He realizes the Professor’s still talking, hears his own name first aloud, then echoed gently in his head, tries to snap out of it.

“Sorry,” he says. “Sorry.”

Xavier’s hand on his shoulder, and Scott goes stiff, has to tell himself not to shrug it away (and how long did it take and how patient was the professor before he even hit that point, he thinks, feels like an asshole for this and every--), and the Professor says, very gently, “Scott. Are you all right?”

He has no idea how to answer that, so he looks back down at the printout in his hand--half-crumpled and starting to tear, he’s been gripping it so tightly. A kid looks back at him from the page--tousled blonde hair, eyes he still recognizes after twelve years, a face that could almost be Scott’s if he squints right. It’s a page from a student directory, he realizes, and there’s an e-mail address, and a campus mailbox number, and god, a _phone number_ , and the name he doesn’t even have to look at to--

He knows what it means, what it’s going to mean; but it’s like an unconnected circuit, transistors waiting for the switch that’ll send power surging through and spell it out in neon: _Alex is alive_.

The Professor is talking again, and Scott can only sort of hear him over the noise in his head, like he’s underwater, like he’s drowning. He closes his eyes and puts his fists over his ears tries to focus, but he’s eight, tearing after Alex through the yard; nine, listening to his brother stumble through picture books over the phone; four, struggling to hold on to Alex, who’s hardly even big enough to be a person yet; eleven, tearing out another IV and tugging at the bandages over his eyes and trying to make his feet go where he tells them because he knows Alex is out there somewhere and Scott has to find him has to has to has to, and this time he almost makes it all the way to the door--

“ _Scott_ ,” the Professor says, again, catches his hand and pulls it gently down from his face; rights his glasses, and Scott hadn’t realized he was even-- “Do you need me to--”

He shakes his head. _No._ Doesn’t need--he can lock this down. Under control. He hasn’t lost it this completely in years, not since--

“Are you sure?” asks the Professor.

He reaches for words, doesn’t find them, nods instead. Xavier waits, impossibly patient, because they’ve been through this before, enough that they both know there’s a point where helping will only make it worse. Stays out of Scott’s head, waits quietly while Scott struggles to pull himself up, out; until he’s back in the office, printout crumpled in his hand-- _Alex_ \--and back in control, at least enough to say, “Sorry.”

The Professor shakes his head. “You don’t need to apologize. I think it would be a shock to anyone, Scott.”

Scott nods, feels his mind starting to turn back into gear-- _think, don’t just react, first rule of--_ “I don’t know what to do.”

“Would you like to contact him?” the Professor asks.

 _Yes_ , but-- “I don’t know,” says Scott. “Does he--what if he doesn’t want--” Alex has a whole life. College. A whole other family, maybe. “He might not even remember me.”

“Would you want him to write, if your positions were reversed?” the Professor asks, and Scott suspects there’s a right answer to this question, and the last one; to the whole situation; and he’s missing it.

“What would I say?” Scott asks. “I couldn’t tell him about--” he reaches up, touches his glasses. _Cyclops_. _The X-Men_. _Anything_.

“No,” says Xavier.

“But he’s a mutant, isn’t he?” Scott asks. “You found him with Cerebro. Maybe--”

Xavier shakes his head. “He’s twenty. Given that he hasn’t manifested any powers, his mutation is almost certainly wholly latent.”

“Oh,” says Scott, and knows that he should probably be glad about that. “We used to--” Sheet tied around his neck like a cape, chasing after Alex, _if you could have any superpower, what would it--_ “What if he hates me?”

The line between the Professor’s eyebrows, the one that means he’s worried, sad. “I doubt that very much.”

Scott shakes his head. Everything’s still blurry and diffuse, like he’s looking through a swimming pool, and he wonders if he’s started crying without realizing it, because his eyes don’t always--he can’t always tell. Touches his face, fingers come away dry, and that’s something, at least.

“I wish I could tell him,” Scott says.

Hand on his shoulder again, and he clenches his teeth, forces himself to stay here, surfaced, to keep breathing. “This is for his safety as well as yours, Scott.” He’s not quite three, and his father is holding him up to look into Alex’s bassinet; impossibly tiny fingers warm under his hand when he reaches down, and he knows he’d do anything for-- His dad’s voice, _You’re a big brother now, Scott. Do you know what that means?_ He’s twenty-two, half doubled over in a chair in Professor Xavier’s office, clutching a crumpled sheet of paper, and everything is red; and he thinks, _It means this_.

Scott nods. “I can do that.” Easy as breathing, and most of Scott is lies anyway; because he’s a ghost, a cipher, and everything before fifteen, before the emergency custody order with Xavier’s name on it is fudged or forged. He’s sixteen, writing over and over again for a copy of his birth certificate, school records, medical records, anything; but there’s nothing left to find, and he wonders sometimes how one person could fall through that many cracks, and how much of what he remembers is even real. He’s used to a _before_ that’s shadowed and murky with rare points of clarity, and most of those points revolve around--

“I’m going to write him,” he resolves, so suddenly it would almost surprise him, except maybe he’s known all along. “I have to. Don’t I?”

Xavier nods, but he says, “Only if you want to. It’s your choice.”

Scott takes a breath, sets his jaw. “I want to.” Hand on his shoulder again, and this time he actually tries not to go stiff, like it’s a reward for the decision, or as close as he lets himself get to-- “Are you going to tell them? The others?”

“No,” says the Professor. “Not unless you want me to.”

“No,” says Scott. “Not--no. Definitely not,” because it’s one thing to fall apart in the Professor’s office--the Professor has seen him at and past his worst, and he doesn’t have to explain--but he still has to get up in the morning and lead the team. Thinks about those secrets like they're sitting in scales, teetering, balancing.

“All right,” says Xavier, nods, again, and Scott knows that whatever this was, it’s done, and the next move is his. He stands, up, shaky, the paper still clutched in his hand, and, on impulse, leans back down and hugs the Professor, and the Professor hugs him back. It’s a little awkward--neither of them is very good at being touched, and there are the glasses, and the chair--but it’s safe and simple, and Scott wishes he could stay even as he’s standing back up.

“Thank you,” he says, and doesn’t know if it’s for Alex, or something else, or everything; but either way, he’s out the door before the Professor can respond.


End file.
